This woodblock from 1565, crafted by designer Geoffroy Ballain and woodcutter Jean de Gourmont, represents a fascinating intersection of mythology, early scientific inquiry, and Renaissance print culture. Now preserved in the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, Belgium—a UNESCO World Heritage site that houses the world's oldest printing presses—this block depicts the Scytale, classified as a subspecies of the mythical serpent Amphisbaena.

The Amphisbaena appears in ancient sources including Pliny's Natural History and Lucan's Pharsalia, described as a serpent with heads at both ends, allowing it to move in either direction without turning. The Scytale represents a variation on this mythological creature, its dual-headed nature symbolising ambiguity and the ability to transcend conventional limitations.

This woodblock was used to illustrate Jacques Grévin's works on poisons, Deux livres des venins (1568) and De venenis libri duo (1571), demonstrating how mythological creatures were integrated into early scientific and medical texts. This integration reflects the Renaissance period's transitional understanding of the natural world, where empirical observation increasingly challenged but had not yet displaced mythological explanations inherited from classical authorities.

The block's artistic execution exemplifies the sophisticated woodcut technique developed in 16th-century Europe, with fine line work capturing detailed anatomical features that blend observational elements with fantastic attributes. This approach typifies Renaissance natural history illustration, which sought to categorise and represent both real and legendary creatures with similar visual language.

Acquired by the Plantin-Moretus Museum in 1876, the block represents a fascinating artifact of 16th-century print culture and intellectual history, illuminating how mythological creatures were documented and disseminated during a period of rapidly evolving understanding of the natural world.